


and those who sow trouble reap it

by smithens



Series: and those who sow trouble reap it [1]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: 1910s, Ballroom Dancing, Closeted Character, Dinner Parties, Edwardians Behaving Badly, Farce, Garden parties, Horseback Riding, Hunting & Shooting, London Social Season, Love Pentagons, Love Triangles, Multi, Nonsense, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24084625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/smithens
Summary: All is fair in love and war, and to the victor go the spoils.
Relationships: Edith Crawley & Mary Crawley & Sybil Crawley, Edith Crawley & Patrick Crawley, Mary Crawley & Patrick Crawley, Patrick Crawley/Duke of Crowborough, Sybil Crawley/Original Character(s), Thomas Barrow & Daisy Mason, Thomas Barrow & Sarah O'Brien, Thomas Barrow/Duke of Crowborough, Thomas Barrow/Patrick Crawley
Series: and those who sow trouble reap it [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1814212
Comments: 52
Kudos: 61





	1. 1909 - 1911

**Author's Note:**

> this foolishness is dedicated especially to DarthNickels & likehandlingroses & for1dollarnameawoman & votsalot & ladysparkles ♥

**1909**

"...and Cousin Mary is to come out this summer, though it's all a farce, when it comes to it."

Philip hummed. "Yes, these things often are."

"No doubt she'll be the darling of London," Patrick continued. He was lying on his side, head propped up by his hand, trailing his fingers up and down Philip's arm in an almost absentminded fashion, if not for the way his eyes followed the movement of his own wrist. "She's a captivating young woman, Cousin Mary, even I can admit it… although, one does wonder. We're rather an open secret, she and I, that is to say our _understanding._ " He paused. "I suppose there are a great many men who mightn't bother if they knew how she was fixed."

"I've had very little trouble," said Philip mildly. "Speaking of women, of course."

"I take it then that the woes of the estate are not so hush-hush after all?"

"I don't suppose they ever have been."

"But the prospect of a coronet does turn the tide in your favour, I imagine… even the penniless have dreams."

"Yes, you imagine right." He paused. "They fancy themselves Duchesses far more than they fancy themselves my wife, but who am I to deny the daughters of my peers an evening of fantasy?"

" _Your_ peers?" said Patrick, raising his eyebrows. "I thought you were yet to inherit, _Lord Philip_."

"Then let us enjoy my time as an unobliged bachelor while we still can…"

*

It was a blessed relief when Mama finally turned — there was only so long one could speak of another's holiday, and she and Lord Horace had long surpassed it.

Of course, it would not be long before she grew bored of Cousin Patrick, either, but he at least was familiar, and small talk would be more manageable with him than with anyone else seated at her mother's table… though, haughty though it may have been, she really would have rathered he not be present at all.

Was it so very much to ask for her to have an evening in which she was not _constantly_ reminded of her fate?

"And Cousin Sybil?"

"Would like very much to believe that she is older than she is," said Mary, but her words were fond — one could hardly not be, when speaking of Sybil. "Such a darling. She fancies herself political now. I don't know if you were told; she's passing the summer at Duneagle and having a jolly time of it, I presume — little Cousin Annabelle adores her."

"Who wouldn't?" said Cousin Patrick, with a gentle smile. He was handsome, but not so much so she wouldn't grow tired of looking at him if she had to for years on end… 

"It was terribly amusing, at Christmas, she and Cousin Rose trailed after her like puppy-dogs… and of course poor Edith felt as though she were being neglected."

He chuckled. "By a nine-year-old girl? Is that right?" 

"She receives so little attention from her own kind, you know," Mary told him, smirking, "perhaps she feels that at their age the girls can still be persuaded to give her some."

Cousin Patrick seemed to grimace, but the expression was promptly hidden by a well-timed sip of his wine. "Quite."

Much too kind, also — was she to go the rest of her life without ever being permitted to speak callously when she cared to? If that were the case, marriage was no different from a schoolroom.

She wondered if he knew about Edith and her feelings.

How anyone couldn't was beyond her, but he never paid her close attention, did he? He hardly paid _Mary_ close attention, and they were to be wed.

"...but she'll be enjoying her time alone in Downton," Mary went on, smoothing it over as best as she could. "When you come for the shooting I am sure they'll all have much to tell you about… Sybil writes such long letters as it is, and she's always leaving things out, she says."

"One does feel so grown up, when one is fourteen," said Cousin Patrick. Mary nodded and gave what she hoped was a considering smile. "But we mustn't let Cousin Sybil fly too close to the sun…"

Mary herself felt too close to the waters… kept from rising by the beat of her father's wings.

*

The moment the door opened, Edith sprang to her feet. Mama seemed ready to scold, and Sybil looked up from her book with a start (only to return to it again not a half-second later…) but she couldn't bring herself to care.

"Oh, Mary, not in the drawing room, _please_!"

"I won't be long," said Mary to their mother, with raised eyebrows and a satisfied smile. She held still her riding hat and crop in her hands. _Indoors_. What anyone saw appealing in her behaviour was beyond her. "We're all quite in need of baths."

"Clearly!" interjected Edith, but she was ignored.

"I only came in to tell Edith that Cousin Patrick must make his excuses for the afternoon," her sister continued, and she was staring right at her now, piercing. "The ride left him terribly exhausted; he's gone straight up… when he asked, I said I thought you would prefer that he be well than to keep his engagement with you, isn't that right?"

"I," Edith began, a stone settling in her chest. "I – well, yes, I should like him to be well – "

"Splendid," Mary said. She brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face with a flourish of her wrist. "Although, he did think he'd be improved by the time he and I go to Haxby this evening — and I should hope he is, for they were so looking forward to seeing him before the trip abroad… what time was their train to London, Mama, do you recall? We mustn't be out too late."

Mama pursed her lips. 

"They're on the nine o'clock," said Sybil after a moment, looking between the three of them. "Mary, did you really forget? Edith's been…"

"Yes, that's right," she interrupted, bright. "The nine o'clock. It must have slipped my mind. Well! That's all..."

And she flounced off.

Edith fell back into her seat, a lump forming in her throat.

**1910**

"My _God!_ "

The door slammed; the candle she'd held in one hand sputtered out as she dropped it, and the freshly laundered bath towels she'd had stacked in her other arm were now all over the floor. 

"It isn't what it – "

"Is it heck as like!" 

"Miss O'Brien – "

"You get your clothes back on before somebody comes running," she retorted, "and as for him... "

She'd never've dared tell Mr Patrick what to do _before_ catching him with his trousers off in the hall closet… there was a shock. She wasn't going to think about it, not if she could help it.

"As for me, I shall be returning to my room," Mr Patrick said, overmuch composed, very stern — his voice was strong in the dark; what right had he to talk like that under _these_ circumstances? "And _you_ will leave at once and speak no word of this, do I make myself very clear?"

"Patrick – "

"Yes, sir," she said, and she flew out from the closet and all but slammed the door shut — stopping just in time so as not to slam it _again…_ then she waited in the servants' staircase to grab Thomas by his lapels as he came through the door.

"Aren't you so lucky I didn't cry out blue murder," she hissed. "What in God's holy name were you _thinking."_

And that was when Thomas began to cry.

*

"Surely she didn't mean it," said Sybil, but she looked the furthest thing from sure.

Edith tugged at the ribbon round the wrist of her nightgown. It was an unbecoming habit, one Mary would certainly like to embarrass her for, just like with the flower on her hat and the spill on her blouse and the way she fit her boot in a stirrup and all the other things in the past few days _alone_ she'd chosen to draw attention to at the precise moment when Cousin Patrick came within earshot!

Even in her own thoughts the torment never ceased, did it?

She scoffed. "Of course she meant it," she retorted, and despite her best efforts a sniffle accompanied the words. She looked away from her sister, out the window, and tugged a pillow to her chest. "She always does… perhaps you're too young to understand, Sybil, dear."

"I'm _not_ ," Sybil said shortly, "and if you truly think I am – oh, Edith!"

Sybil flung her arms around her neck just as the tears began to fall down her cheeks.

This was what having a sister was _supposed_ to be like; she knew it. It was _supposed_ to be like having one's very best friend living just down the hall, one's confidante. Someone to go to dinners and parties with and only fight over trivial matters: who will wear the sapphire necklace to this ball? Who will wear her hair in a chignon and who will wear it in a knot? — of course, neither she nor Sybil wore their hair up quite yet, but that was always how it was in novels, and surely literature reflected life to some degree.

Just not, it seemed, where Mary was concerned.

Mary, who was sleeping peacefully a few doors down, perfectly content with her vicious choices.

The tears stopped as suddenly as they'd came.

Sybil pulled away.

"Don't worry," she said, "it'll look better in the morning… that's what Mama always says, right?"

"Yes," Edith sighed. "Yes, it is…"

But saying something did not make it true.

*

He'd gone through five smokes in what felt like as many minutes, but Miss O'Brien kept handing them to him and his bloody hands were still shaking.

"We all make mistakes," she said. "Only most of us not ones half so bad as that."

"You won't – "

"'Course I won't, you noodle, I've said as much, haven't I? Now stop asking." 

Thomas wiped at his face with his sleeve again, then palmed at his eyes with the heels of his hand, cigarette still in his mouth.

Until now he'd not spoken more than a hundred words to Miss O'Brien, probably. She wasn't much of a talker — not in a personal way, at least, but then nor was he. He'd thought she was clever and he'd liked her for speaking her mind, but after a thing like this how the bloody hell was he to know if she really was the sort to keep her word? The others talked about her and not nice things, neither. Though if that was how he was going to judge people he may as well toss _himself_ out on his ear, because people liked to talk about him, too.

And wouldn't they like to talk about this. He'd be ruined all over again, have to start over _all over again,_ and he didn't have anywhere to go — 

_I need to get something on her._

Why had _she_ been prowling the halls in the middle of the night?

No, that wasn't good enough; there wasn't _anything_ that was good enough – 

"Mr Watson's like that, you might be pleased to know," she said.

They were seated on opposite sides of the table in the kitchen courtyard; he looked up at her, wide-eyed.

"I'll let you tell him yourself, if you like."

Thomas nodded, struck dumb.

She stood, made her way to his side. "Come on," she said, grabbing his elbow and yanking. "Dry your eyes. Up to bed with you."

**1911**

"If you _do_ have a free evening, as you say… Mama is hosting a dinner that night."

"Is this an invitation?"

"Oh, dear, I should think not," she replied, but she could not hide her smile. "That would be quite forward."

"Well," he said, waltzing them through and around the other couples — ugh, there was Sir Ivor and _Edith,_ making a fool of herself ogling at Cousin Patrick over her partner's shoulder as always — without taking his eyes off of hers, graceful. "One supposes that if your mother is so inclined, she might dispatch one herself, and her charming daughter need not trouble herself to be the messenger... surely the Earl of Grantham keeps a household with footmen?"

_Her charming daughter._

If only one could get away with naming the same man on one's dance card all night.

Other men said such things, of course, but never so sincerely as he seemed to. She did like to think she could tell the difference between flattery and genuine interest — and she'd known enough men in her two years out that she had very many an example with which to compare.

"Why, yes, I daresay he does," far more coy than she needed to be… but why shouldn't she be coy, with men? That was the point of all this, wasn't it? To flirt and play the ingenue? And it _was_ play: she wasn't to marry any of them, after all. She knew very well what was expected of her: to marry a man who seemed to be equally as interested in being her husband as she was in being his wife.

Hardly at all.

"Perhaps it would be more proper to send one over."

He said it in a low voice, as though it were a secret.

"Do you care very much for what is proper, Duke?" Mary asked, looking up at him through her eyelashes.

He stroked the small of her back as they turned, and _that_ was answer enough. "Oh, Lady Mary," he said, with a sparkle in his eyes that made her head spin. "I'm afraid that I must."

*

"Oh, thank God, I did fear it might be that other one — what was his name?"

"Ethelbert," said Thomas, with a cocked eyebrow. "Second footman? He's not nearly so fun as I am."

He handed over the envelope and the calling card both, and Philip ushered him inside, quick to latch the door. 

"I daresay there is no one in the whole of London who is nearly so fun as you," he returned, and Thomas smirked… he was so very handsome, and so very captivating — too much so. _Dangerously_ so, for it had hardly been a fortnight and already he felt that he was becoming attached. He'd never in his life felt so strongly for a man, for all his chances to have done so: not at Eton, not at Sandhurst, not even at Oxford, where he'd found himself with a new chap every term and taken his time before boring of them.

But the Crawleys and those associated with them were the furthest thing from boring, in his experience.

Apparently that extended even to their servants.

"So," Thomas said, snaking an arm around his waist and wasting no time in pressing his lips to his neck. "We've done it." 

"What is the date, precisely?" Philip asked, and he slipped his hand beneath the lapel of his coat where he could, pushing it off of his arm.

They only had so much time.

"Open that up and you'll see," said Thomas, "but let's not worry about the _date_ now…"

"Hm?"

A kiss to his jaw. Philip pushed Thomas backward, flush to the wall, and drew his head back enough only far to see his face.

"'M more interested in how we can keep you at Grantham House for's long as possible," breathless, blushing. "They'll be up late, you lot always are..."

"Say there's trouble with my coachman..."

"Say you have too much to drink..."

"Say I'm taken with a _dreadful_ headache..."

"Say…" 

*

She always saved room for him on her dance card, and he always asked for a place upon it — but it was never the _last_ dance, and never the loveliest ones. She would have liked to try something fun and modern, or if not that then something that allowed them to be close. Within the bounds of propriety, of course, nothing to concern a chaperone, but closer than they ever did have the chance to be.

But beggars could not be choosers, and loathe though she was to admit it, Edith was a beggar. 

So here they were, at a respectable difference, chattering away about _Mary's dancing partner._

"You and he were friends?" she asked him.

"Ah, yes, rather, and close, too — we were up at Cambridge."

"Pembroke?"

"That's it." Cousin Patrick looked awfully pleased that she had remembered… _that_ was her advantage over Mary. She cared — she cared so very, very much, and with each passing day he seemed to grow more aware of it, and…

Regardless of what Papa wanted, of what Cousin James wanted, her heart knew its object, and she hoped that with time they could all come to understand. It was a foolish dream, of course, deep down she was quite aware of that, but it was her very first season in London, and she was young and in her prime. If now was not the time for dreams, would that time ever come?

"And earlier," said Cousin Patrick, thoughtful, "during that waltz; was that the _Duke_ of _Crowborough_?"

"Was it?" she answered, her throat feeling suddenly tight. _Dreams,_ indeed. "Do – do you know him, as well?"

She'd rather speak of a Duke than of her own sister; of that she was positive.

"Oh, we've crossed paths once or twice… is Cousin Mary very interested in him, do you know?"

" _Must_ we talk about Mary?" she blurted, awkwardly. Her cheeks grew hot.

Cousin Patrick adjusted his hold on her shoulder. 

It was a full measure before he spoke again: "no – no, we mustn't. I beg your pardon," softly, and with a kind smile. He had such wonderful lips and teeth. "I find… to tell you the truth, Cousin Edith, I find myself in the predicament of having to convince every man and woman around me that I am as eager as Father is to see us married off, so much so that it has become a habit, and – "

Her breath caught in her throat.

" – well, you understand. Only, I'm not convinced myself." He paused. "Is that very odd?"

"No," Edith breathed, "no, it isn't odd at all."

"I did hope you might see it my way," said Cousin Patrick, quite cheerfully.

She could have kissed him then and there.


	2. 1912 | January

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh oh sisters! i've done that thing again where i write way more than i've planned!
> 
>  **content notes:** a pseudo-homophobic comment made by a gay man.

**1912**

_January_

"Go on," said Mr Watson, beckoning him through the door, "go, go – "

 _Thank you,_ Thomas mouthed, and he darted down the corridor with light footsteps as quick as he could.

And then he stood by the door and wondered why he was bothering. Mr Patrick was nicer than the rest, but they'd been carrying on for more than a bloody year and it wasn't going to last much longer, not with him and Lady Mary tying the knot by the end of autumn. 

Once they announced it, then it'd be over.

Besides, he didn't love him anyway. He'd thought he did for about a month when he was eighteen, but he'd been wrong… and he had somebody else now. Somebody special, even if they were both having blokes on the side. They could hardly be expected to be true when they were so far apart. They were men and they had needs and all that.

He knocked, five times in a rhythm just to be sure, and then waited a time before opening the door.

"Thomas!"

"Mr Patrick."

Used to be just Patrick, but then it'd ended up a habit, so it was back to formalities.

"I thought you wouldn't come," Mr Patrick said, with a wide grin. "You were so standoffish a few hours ago."

"Had other things on my mind," Thomas replied vaguely. Such as how Mr Harrowby had known so much about what he liked and didn't… you didn't get to understand those things just from being some Lord's valet. That wasn't the kind of thing people talked about.

Shooting brought all sorts.

"...but I'm here now."

"And I'm so very pleased," he returned, rising from bed, and by the time Thomas made it across the room he'd already gotten out of half his clothes.

When he woke up it was dark, the fire no longer smouldering. Mr Patrick was asleep, arm draped over Thomas's hip, and he had to take care not to disturb him as he got out of bed… God, _why_ had he fallen asleep? Although since he was here, maybe they could get more out of it….

He knew where matches were kept, and though he fumbled in the dark to find them he had a candle lit in no time.

A look at the clock disabused of him of the notion quick.

"Shit," Thomas said, and Mr Patrick pressed himself up, the covers rustling. He'd be back to sleep in the next quarter of an hour if that, but Thomas was _working_ in the next quarter of an hour, and nobody was going to keep the coast clear for him at this time in the morning. "Daisy'll be in – "

"Oh – yes, by all means."

On the servants' staircase he met Mr Savident; they stopped short and looked each other over.

"You, too?"

He grinned. "Lady Matthiola's been so _lonesome,_ since Sir Valentine gave up the ghost..."

"Yeah, I bet she has..."

*

"And how is your work?" Mary asked, perfunctory. They were running out of things to talk about, and it was still a ways back to the house from the folly… she shouldn't have agreed to a walk, not in this weather, no matter if it was _what one does_. The frost crunched beneath their feet; her hands were going numb within her muff; she could see her breath in the air. Mr Alistair, at least, would have kept her mind off of it with conversation — as it was _he_ had not been quick enough in asking her to go, and so here she was, talking fluff.

And a few paces behind them Aunt Rosamund was making no effort to pretend as though she wasn't listening.

"Oh, there's never a dull day at the foreign office," said Cousin Patrick, in a frivolous sort of tone. "Do you know, I was afraid that blas – that dreadful business with the ambassador might keep us from Christmas, but we were lucky in the end."

"Quite," she said. He looked down at her with a smile. "You were in Vienna, weren't you?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Would it have been so bad, to be kept from home?" she said, perhaps a little too airy. "Surely of all the places to pass the Christmastide, Austria is among the better."

Cousin Patrick laughed. "One hopes," he said. "But Austria does not have my dear Cousin Mary, does it?"

"You flatter me, Cousin Patrick."

They met eyes.

It wasn't very comfortable.

"It's true Vienna is lovely," Cousin Patrick continued quickly. "In fact, I should like to return on a holiday when I've next the chance… the Christmas markets were very darling. But it would have been quite the disappointment not to see _you_."

Mary was inclined to disagree.

"And who was in your entourage?" she said, and if he minded the change in subject he gave no sign of it.

"We were a jolly party of three," he said. "Indeed, when we went out we were often mistaken for brothers — Gordon and I have the same colouring, you see, and he and Chetwynd have got the same nose, things like that." Cousin Patrick paused. "Our local gentleman thought it quite amusing. As a matter of fact we got into some trouble at his club…"

He suddenly turned his head, back toward Aunt Rosamund.

"My," said Mary, raising her eyebrows, "I don't know that I like the sound of that…"

"Nothing your father would disapprove of."

"Nor yours?"

*

"They're so insufferable sometimes," Sybil was complaining. "I don't know how they can be so – so catty, when Cousin Patrick is so kind. Mary doesn't even _like_ him, not in that way. And you'd think he'd be _less_ interested, when they behave like that." She paused. "Wouldn't you?"

Some men liked when women fought over them, but she thought Cousin Patrick too much a gentleman to be one of them.

"He doesn't seem very interested in either of them to begin with, in my book," Chrysanthemum said, pointedly. She finally shut her novel ( _Aurora Leigh_ ) and took her pencil out from behind her ear — a habit Mary always made fun of her for. It was less of a problem now that she wore her hair up, really, although that didn't make it any less improper… but even if it _was_ improper, Sybil liked it. She wasn't afraid to be unconventional, Chrysanthemum, and it didn't seem to stop her from anything at all.

Sometimes it seemed like the rules were _made_ to be broken.

"Oh, but he is," Sybil insisted. 

Chrysanthemum raised her eyebrows. "Do you think?"

Suddenly Sybil felt very stupid, though she hadn't the faintest idea why. She lifted her chin, defiant. "I do," she said. Everyone loved Mary. "And everyone says he's obvious — he talks about Mary _incessantly_."

Especially now that they'd begun to make arrangements.

"Hm," said Chrysanthemum, patronising. "You might feel differently when you're older."

What on Earth did _that_ have to do with it?

"Oh, not you, too…"

"I'm teasing, Sybil, darling," she said. But then her brow furrowed. "He came to my ball."

Sybil knew that already; Edith had written a _very_ long letter about it. 

"Did he say anything to you, then?" she tried.

And Chrysanthemum's lips parted, but she didn't have time to say anything before the door opened.

"Milady – "

They both turned.

"Her Ladyship, Lady Chrysanthemum," said Emily, stammering. "I've been sent to collect you for – "

"Tea with the _Darnleys,_ " Chrysanthemum sighed. "Yes, I know."

"Tea with _Sir Troilus Darnley,_ " Sybil teased, and Chrysanthemum huffed.

"Soon enough you'll be out, too, dear," she said, smoothing out her skirt as she stood. "And your mother will be just like mine, you'll see — a different boy at _every_ shooting party, every fox hunt, every afternoon tea, every ball..."

"I should hope you dance with more than one boy at a ball…"

"But one only ever _likes_ to dance with one boy, and he's always out of reach, isn't he?"

Sybil wouldn't know, of course.

She picked her book back up from the cushion beside her and took out her bookmark, as if to say, _I am not allowed to think about such things yet, and frankly I do not care to, so since you are going please leave me in peace._ Or, she wanted to convey that feeling, at least. She always had such a twist in her stomach whenever Chrysanthemum spoke of her coming out — of dinner parties and horse races and chaperones and _boys._ When she'd told Mama about it she'd said every English girl must feel the same way until her debut, but Edith had said she was just being foolish.

She didn't know who to believe.

And something made her feel that she couldn't tell Chrysanthemum herself...

Maybe the trick with the book hadn't worked. Chrysanthemum was only squinting at her.

"Not _very_ soon," said Sybil finally.

"Two years! I wish Mama had waited, I really thought I was the youngest of all the débs in the season; it was frightfully awkward… but _you_ won't be. We can all be sure of that."

"Milady," said Emily, a tad more insistent than she'd been before. Sybil tried to smile at her.

"À bientôt," said Chrysanthemum, and she left the room with a sly smile at her lips — she could make _anything_ look elegant, even teasing.

Emily curtseyed as she let go of the door, and then it was Sybil in the small library, alone with Maria Edgeworth and her thoughts.

*

"...making an ass of himself, I reckon," said Mr Watson. After lighting his own cigarette he passed her the match, and she nodded her acknowledgement. "But he's young, he'll learn soon enough."

"First footman," she said, "it's gone to his head."

And it certainly had... He'd only been at it a month.

She did worry after him — all that running about in London, and he never did seem to spend much time in his own bed when parties came to stay. But Mr Watson had seemed to take that upon his own shoulders, which was just as well. She could abide by it, but she wanted no part in it.

Sarah wanted to keep her job same as anybody else, and getting tangled up in the affairs of other servants' was trouble enough when the affairs weren't never to go before a judge if they got found out… best to keep everybody else at an arm's length and Thomas at an elbow's, and play none the wiser if it all unravelled.

"He's fit for the job, there's no denying. Wouldn't've looked right if old Carson kept passing him over when he's been ahead of the other boys since he started." Mr Watson chuckled. "He wants to be a valet, did he tell you?"

"Are you joking? He hasn't shut up about it since August."

"The Season's the best trial," he said frankly. "If a boy can stand that he can stand most anything."

"Thomas can stand more than's good for him."

"Oh, no denying that, neither, Miss O'Brien, no denying that…"

And then they fell silent for a very long time, thinking.

They'd only a little time before they had to be back inside, and it was cold as anything in the courtyard, but they couldn't get away with talking about some things in the servants hall. And if Thomas were to come out soon…

Best get it over with. She had been wondering.

"Has he got very innocent motives, wanting that job?" she asked.

Mr Watson snorted. "If he's got innocent motives I've got a second head."

"Just as I thought." 

They shared a glance. Her throat felt odd all of a sudden, and though it was only about half done with at best she stamped out her cigarette. A waste. Mr Watson frowned.

"'Sa lesson to learn the hard way," he told her, "we all do. And he won't be a proper valet as soon as he likes, not if I've anything to do with it… not ready to leave the nest just yet."

"If he heard you talk that way…"

"He couldn't do anything about it," with something between a smile and a sneer. Thomas had picked up the face from him, she'd noticed. "Pity, though — he'll not get the job for Mr Patrick come the wedding, mark my words."

"Whyever not?"

He looked at her with an expression that could only be called incredulous.

"Well, Mr _Patrick's_ fond of him," she said, defensive, "and that's a well-kept secret if there ever was one…"

"God, let's hope it stays that way. No — His Lordship'd never allow it."

It took her too long, but when the other shoe fell she gasped. "He never knows about _Thomas_ – "

"Oh, he knows," said Mr Watson. "He certainly knows. I think he might've when he hired him. And can you blame him? Was I an Earl, I wouldn't hire a footman who had a face like that if he weren't a queer. Not if I had three daughters, at least." 

So there it was.

Mr Watson tapped the ash off of his cigarette; Sarah watched it fall to snuff out in the frost, more shocked than she wanted to let on.

*

"Edith," hissed Mama from across the table, "Lord Barnabus is speaking to you."

Edith startled.

Beside her, Lord Barnabus blushed pink. "I asked if you might like to join me riding this afternoon," he said. "Coke – my loader, you know – he was taken poorly this morning, and so I've decided to take a rest from the shooting, for his sake, the poor chap." He was a softspoken man, Lord Barnabus, and he was sweet, but she knew Mama only ever sat them together because they _looked_ the same — blond and round and not nearly so attractive as their siblings. They had very little in common, otherwise.

She glanced over at Cousin Patrick, who was engaged in an animated conversation with Lady Chrysanthemum Thynne… more animated than he ever was with Mary. 

Cause for envy, of course, but small blessings were still blessings.

Mama wasn't going to take her eyes off of her until she gave in, was she?

"Yes, I think I would," she said, even though it was a lie, and he beamed.

So she spent the rest of luncheon wondering how she might get away with – well, with being taken poorly herself, but it proved futile.

"Forgive my saying so, but it's only an afternoon, milady," said Anna later, as she twirled her hair into a knot. "My mother liked to say, it'll be over before you know it." She put a pin in at the crown of her head, and Edith watched her in the mirror. "I don't know that she was always right, but it can be good advice, sometimes."

"No, I think your mother was right, in this case," sighed Edith. "I'm sure my own would prefer I savour every moment…"

"And, there."

Anna nodded at her in the mirror, and she tilted her head back and forth to see what she could. It was quite a nice style, for the daytime. Flattering in a way the evening ones never were, only it was rendered useless by the fact that she'd be wearing a hat.

"Is he very nice, Lord Barnabus?" Anna asked. She took Edith's riding habit off from the wardrobe, and they set about getting her into it.

"He is, rather," Edith said. "Only…"

"Not so nice in that way?"

Anna understood more than anyone else ever seemed to… Edith shook her head. "I'm afraid not."

"Well, milady," she replied, "I hope you have a pleasant afternoon, even so."

But it wouldn't be as pleasant as it could be, if she were sharing it with someone else.

"It'll be over before I know it," echoed Edith.

Anna smiled, sympathetic, and began to button her jacket.


	3. 1912 | February

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're back!

**1912**

_February_

"Thomas?"

_Oh no oh no oh no oh no_

"Is that you?"

_Oh no no no no no no no no no no_

"Is this a sort of trick?"

_No no no no no not now please not now not ever she's gone and done it again_

Daisy took a big breath. "No, Mr Patrick, sir – "

It was _always_ Mr Patrick… last time he'd been she'd woken him, too, only then he'd told her he'd already been up for ages as like if a gentleman ever gets up at five o'clock in the _morning,_ not even she manages that every time —

" – I'm the scullery maid, sir, and I'm so very sorry to've woken – "

"Ah," said Mr Patrick, sitting upright. "Daisy!"

She was so shocked she stopped rambling; behind her, the fire began to crackle.

At least she'd done the one thing right...

"It is Daisy, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir," she whispered.

She could only imagine what Mrs Patmore would say — something out of her _nightmares,_ probably, and he knew her name didn't he so he could complain direct if he wanted —

"The scullery maid."

She nodded. Her heart was up in her throat. The room was pitch dark except for the fire behind her; she tried not to think about whether Mr Patrick was decent…

_The room was dark._

"Yes, sir," she said quickly. _Stupid!_

"How long have you been at Downton, Daisy?"

"Just a few months, sir."

"And before?

"Three years at Aldborough Hall," she said, "and four at Wickham House, in Harrogate."

Mr Patrick said, "I wouldn't call that very green, would you?"

"Only it were just – it – the houses, they weren't as grand as Downton Abbey," stammered Daisy, "sir."

"Few are," said Mr Patrick. He spoke almost like he had a smile on his face. "Now, if you can promise me it won't happen again, it will be our secret… what do you say to that, Daisy?"

"I promise," she said, like she were in school, "it won't happen again."

Mr Patrick laughed.

He was nice at the same time as he wasn't at all… he had something strange about him.

"Very good — if you've finished?"

"Yes, sir, thanks ever so," she stammered, and then she curtseyed (with the _wrong leg_ like a _fool_ but maybe he couldn't see when it was night like this), and then she turned back toward the fire to check if it was still going right because she'd just said yes it's finished and _yes it was thank you merciful Lord_ , and then she grabbed the pail and ran out of the room as quietly as she possibly could, her heart _racing._

* * *

"Yes, we'll go over in May," Cousin James was saying to Papa. "When was it, Patrick?"

Cousin Patrick looked to _her,_ and Mary nodded — he hardly needed her permission to speak to his own father, whether he was in conversation with her or not.

It was luncheon, not church, although he'd not have needed her permission _there,_ either.

"We've not yet booked passage," he answered. "There's a voyage on the second I thought might suit, but I'm still inclined to hold off — I had hoped we might depart sooner, but I'm afraid it won't be possible until this business in Berlin is wrapped up, and with March now on the horizon I fear that could be April or June or even beyond... although if that is the case I suppose we'll have to reconsider our plans entirely."

"What business in Berlin?" Sybil piped up, laying down her fork and leaning forward over the table far enough that Granny hemmed in distaste.

Or perhaps that was about the political question.

One never knew, with Granny…

But the rest of the table quieted, and Cousin Patrick chuckled awkwardly. "We're keeping our eye on a bill in Parliament," he said. "I'm afraid that's most of what I do these days."

"A bill for what?"

"Sybil, please," said Mama.

"Why on Earth would you want to know?" Mary asked her. "It's not to do with _suffrage_."

She did love Sybil, but all this talk of the vote was exhausting… it had nothing to do with her, she'd not be twenty-one for ages even if anything _were_ ever to come of those women in London…

"Oh, but _everything_ is about suffrage! If women are to have the vote, we must pay attention to politics here _and_ – "

"Are you to have it in Germany?" said Granny.

Unfortunately, Sybil was undeterred: "if German women are given the right before the English – "

"I find I'd like to know, too," Edith interrupted. "Is it so very wrong to find Cousin Patrick's work interesting?" When it was terribly boring, yes… and Mary was sure she didn't understand it.

"Goodness, Edith," she said. "It's to do with naval expansion — or weren't you listening when we discussed it yesterday at tea?"

She hadn't been, of course, she'd been far too busy pouting like a child.

"Of course I was," she returned, but she wouldn't meet Mary's eyes. "But Sybil wasn't at – "

Mary snorted. "Oh, please don't pretend this is about _Sybil_ – "

"Well, she's too young to – "

"If you're going to leave me out of these things just because I'm younger, I'll learn about them some other way – "

"Don't be ridiculous – "

"This has nothing to do with you, dear – "

"Well, at least you can admit it – "

"You always think I won't understand – "

"Well, you won't, will you? _I_ certainly don't, Edith is hardly comprehensible at the best of times – "

"I'm not a child, I'm seventeen – "

" _Mary_ might think you're beneath her, but – "

Papa raised his voice: "girls!"

There was a prolonged silence.

 _Mama,_ Mary thought, staring at her plate, _do your duty, please…_

_Please…_

_Please..._

"...you'll be in America the whole season, then?" Edith asked eventually, sounding like a damp mouse—and looking as pathetic as one.

"Yes, I think we shall," said Cousin Patrick quickly. "Of course there is a season in New York—Aunt Cora has such _stories_ …"

* * *

"They don't get on," Thomas said, flatly. "He told me."

"Straight from the horse's mouth, then, was it?" said Mr Watson, a quirk in his eyebrows. He shrugged and spread his hands, theatrical — he was that sort, wasn't he — before taking one last drag of his cigarette and putting it out with a press of his heel. "His father might call that all the more reason to hire him instead of you."

Thomas only scowled.

For a grown man and a boy half his age they bickered like sixteen-year-old girls.

Mr Watson put his jacket back on, and Thomas straightened up, lifting his chin in a way that didn't do him any favours for being taken seriously, no matter what he thought; after Mr Watson had stepped away, O'Brien almost wondered if he might end up running after him back into the house.

But he didn't.

Too busy fuming.

"Been doing the work since I started, haven't I been," he muttered.

He could have been talking about playing valet or first footman, with all they'd been talking about. She wondered if it quite mattered. Sarah remembered all too well what it was like to be good at your job and passed over time and time again—it had taken her long enough to be a _real_ lady's maid, all that time spent as head housemaid taking over the work with none of the pay, before she'd gotten a proper place at Downton, but…

"He shouldn't've passed me over, not for a footman who's never done it before."

She wouldn't mention that he was a footman, himself, and that his own first time valeting had been for Mr Patrick… But he was right; he _was_ better than anybody the Crawleys—the _other_ Crawleys—had brought over with them. She'd stand by that. He was better than any boy she'd known in service for a long time. Only he was getting awful near to biting off more than he could chew…

"You've got a few months yet before he'll need somebody permanent," she said. "We'll work on it in the meantime."

There was no use in diplomacy. With Thomas you just had to tell him what was what or he'd talk at it sideways for ages.

"And what've I got to bloody work on?" Thomas said, affronted, but she was no stranger to the nerves beneath the surface. "'Sides, I don't want to be his valet."

"Don't you?"

"Mr _Watson_ thinks I'm not up to it..."

She hadn't forgotten their conversation a few weeks ago. "Did he say that?"

Thomas put out the cigarette he'd been nursing for the better part of half an hour—couldn't've had much left—and scowled. "He thinks I can't tell."

So he was making assumptions.

"Doesn't matter, though, does it," Thomas went on, "'s just as I said, I don't want to work for him."

"Who else might you work for in this house," she said, "Lady Sybil?"

The way she carried on...

He stopped a moment, froze like an animal playing dead, but then it was over and he only glared at her. "I don't remember saying I wanted to be at Downton forever, Miss O'Brien, do you?"

As if he'd leave.

"Have you got some offers from all the other Earls needing men your age as valets, then?" she asked, unashamedly cloying.

"Maybe I've got my sights set higher than an Earl," he retorted, and then before she knew it he was back in the house.

His funeral.

* * *

"...have you been introduced? Mr Patrick Crawley, eventual heir to the Earl of Grantham," Philip turned, "and, Lord Peter Pelham, Marquess of Hexham."

After greetings and handshakes had been exchanged, Philip sat down once again and gestured they do the same.

"You'll call me simply Peter, please," Peter said, and once Patrick had nodded in affirmation he added, not unkindly, "eventual heir?"

"Many years to go before then, I should hope," Patrick said, smiling rather sheepishly, "although with any luck I'll be the apparent sooner rather than later – ah, I'm second in the line, after my father."

"Don't we all know _that_ feeling," Peter said, soft. He hadn't an ill-willed bone in his body, Philip thought, far unlike himself or Patrick, although the both of them did a very good job pretending otherwise. "Although I feel so very horrid, saying it, now I've succeeded him," yes, there it was, " – the Earl of Grantham, that's Downton Abbey, is it not?"

"That's it," said Patrick, brighter than he had been before. _Quite like his cousin._ The Lady Mary had been the most spirited, he remembered, when speaking of her home, most likely because she had no chance of keeping it barring the obvious. One always did become the most attached to the things one was most likely to lose. "You're familiar?"

"With a footman," replied Peter cheerily.

Philip choked on his brandy.

"Ah," Patrick said, equally affable, "so the rumours _are_ true – "

"If he'd been anyone else – "

"He's a poor relationship with his father and is a friend of yours; I thought it rather unlikely."

Rather than set it down he chose to down the rest of his glass, which was wise, because the next thing Patrick said was, "you don't mean Thomas," with his eyebrows raised, and he thought he might have choked again.

"No, I'm afraid I don't – mine's a young chap by the name of Ethelbert."

Of every man of their class in England those beside him were likely the only two who could be counted upon not only to have affairs with footmen but to _remember their names._

"...he's at Newburgh Castle now, with the Belasyses—more convenient, as until yourself I'd never met a Crawley, I believe, although Father and the, ah, current Earl must have crossed paths."

"I'll be happy to put a word in with Cousin Robert, if you ever cared to meet more—are you close with the Belasyses, then? Basil and I were at Eton."

"Were you! I can't tell you how pleased I am to hear it. You must know the house, then?"

"Not so well as I might, but…"

Not for the first time, Philip found he had introduced two men who had more in common with each other than with him, and in the next minutes he was tempted on more than one occasion to take out his watch.

Until at last:

"...I daresay we're leaving him out."

"Perhaps by choice—I'm sure we both know that Philip would sooner touch a woman than a servant."

This time he had nothing to choke on, and he managed to offer a wan smile. "I can't think what you must mean by that," he said evenly.

Patrick chuckled, awkward—he'd agree with Peter on that score, hopefully.

"My dear fellow," said Peter, "nothing at all, although it speaks well of you, so many of our number take advantage—ah, are the two of _you_ very well acquainted, then?"

Never was there a more welcome change of subject.

"Oh, I'd say we see one another at the odd thing..."

Trust Patrick Crawley to put it like that, although in all respects it was true, of course—their liaisons were far and few between, generally only after a coincidence of time and place and, too, a few drinks, and they both, Philip thought, preferred it that way.

If only that were enough to satisfy him, life would be so much more simple… He'd gotten himself tangled up in rather a ghastly situation, with Thomas, and he was once more uncomfortably aware of it.

"The _odd_ thing?" Peter asked, with a knowing smile.

"Need I remind you both that we're not among friends," Philip said darkly, although if he were worried about discretion he'd do best not to be seen with Peter Pelham in public, even at the club...

"Shall we go someplace where we are?"

Well.

Perhaps just this once.

* * *

_29th February, 1912_

_My darling,_

_I had missed your letters. I was worried I'd been forgotten. It's been weeks, and I've been waiting so very patiently. I had a mind to scold you for making me feel so neglected, only I never can be cross with you for very long, so for now you are forgiven._

_Yes, you've taken me in again with your pretty words, but how can I be so sure that you mean them? You'll have to be more convincing than that, next time. I know you can be. You have done in the past. We're far apart, as you say, so it wouldn't be very wise of me to believe you when you've given me so little proof of your affection in so long. You must get lonely on that grand estate, passing the cold winter months by yourself. Only I think you're not so solitary as you claim to be. I suppose it must be easy for you to put me out of your mind when it's convenient, but me, I'm cursed with thinking of you always, day and night, dawn til dusk._

_Do your eyes wander, when I'm not with you? Do your hands? You always say you don't care for great halls and gardens, that you'd be content with something more humble if only you were allowed, but I know what they can tempt a man like you with. I shouldn't like to be led up the garden path, not when I care for you so very much. Remember it's you and you alone who holds my heart. Please, be as gentle with it as you are with my body. Or have you forgotten how I like to be touched since we last met? Have you forgotten what I long for? I don't ask for too much from you, do I? Surely you remember what it takes to please me. I hope you do, because I haven't been pleased since I was last with you. You made me afraid I'd never be again, taking so much time before you wrote back to me, but just as I said I've found it in me to be forgiving. Oh, I did mean to be cross, I did, but it gets cold and lonely on this grand estate in Yorkshire, too, and last night I just couldn't help myself but think of you as I…_

_…_

_… soon the season will start and we'll be together again, you and I, and you can show me how much you've missed me in person. Until then I will long for you, so you must be good to me and give me more things to think about in the meantime._

_From your dearest (if truly I am)_

_T._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think it's spelled belassis in the script but i, like many 21st century mothers, have chosen to go with the [variant that has a y in it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Belasyse,_1st_Viscount_Fauconberg). it may not count as motherhood if i only invent one (1) son & not the entire family, Credit To Julian Fellowes For The Downton Abbey Belassises, but this is my fanfiction and i get to choose the names.
> 
> \+ another point in Gay Patrick Crawley's favor: every other Downton Abbey aristocrat whose name begins with the letter "P" is gay. (there are only two. but still.) ive-connected-the-two-dots.jpg
> 
> the next chapter was supposed to be march but it is probably also going to be february


	4. Chapter 4

**1912**

**__** _March_

"Well, he did like to say he was _unsatisfied…_ so he's up and left, then?"

"Yeah, Franklin knocked on the door 'bout ten times, woke the whole bloody corridor."

"I never thought he'd have the nerve."

"Told you he was going, did he," Thomas said, unquestionably affronted, no matter if he schooled his face the moment the last word was out of his mouth. 

If he had, wouldn't she have said something about it already? But she had a sense for it. She had a sense for a great many things, and unhappiness was one. "Seems I know as much as you do," she told him.

"Yeah, well, he never told _me_ he weren't _satisfied,_ " he muttered. She wasn't fond of that look on his face, to be certain. It was only a job, being a maid or a valet, and there was no need to make it personal.

At the moment Sarah opened her mouth they were passed on the stairs by Anna and Gwen. The latter darted down the next flight looking like a hare before a shotgun; the former stopped on the landing and turned round to look at them, arms crossed over her chest and eyebrows raised. "And just what are you doing on this staircase at six o'clock in the morning?"

She'd be meaning Thomas, naturally; there was nothing wrong with _her_ being here...

"Having a chat," Thomas answered coolly, "what's it look like?"

"You can have a chat in the servants' hall," Anna told him, exasperated—but she didn't seem too fussed. Was smiling, even.

She was never so nice to Thomas as when Sarah was standing right there… 

"Without you poking your nose in?" she asked, at the same time as Thomas said, "Mr Carson'll love that, won't he, Miss O'Brien?"

Anna rolled her eyes. "I'm only trying to warn you…" she said, and then she turned to him full on. "Go back to your own side before Mrs Hughes finds out."

She did have a point, and after she'd left Thomas made a point of saying he'd been done already… and he changed his tune about Carson when they went down and he got drafted in to dress his Lordship first thing. It took her only a second to realise that though she'd her doubts about whether or not he was up to it, she already had one ear upstairs… and there wouldn't be any harm with another.

*

"...oh, Golly, I'm just so _excited,_ " Sybil was saying. For a girl who spent so very much of her time begging that they see her as a woman she did herself absolutely no favours. "I haven't seen Imogen since the grouse, didn't you know, they've been in _France,_ and she's an angel but she's _such_ a dreadful correspondent…"

 _Didn't_ she know? By now she knew nothing else!

Mary had already proven herself an insufferable conversation partner, of course, although why Edith ever supposed otherwise was beyond her…

"The Ladies Annabelle and Angelica Portsmouth…"

And after a kiss to Mama's cheek, there she went—but before she'd left the room she turned, fixing her eyes on Edith. "Shall I say hello to Ansel for you, Edith?" 

Her cheeks burned.

The _last_ thing she needed was a reminder of what had happened at that ball... Annabelle and Angelica giggled, and no one said a word about it, but Sybil had stopped tittering and was looking back and forth between them all, silent.

But she never spoke up in situations such as this one, did she? Only when it suited her to be heard. Frowning would do positively nothing.

Typical.

Mary tugged at her gloves, blew a kiss to Sybil and swept herself away. One corner of a perfect beautiful triangle.

"Edith," Sybil started, reaching toward her hand, but Edith pulled it away before she could make contact. "Don't let them – "

"I'm not _letting_ them do anything," she snapped.

Then the door swung open again. How timely.

"Miss Bunting," announced Thomas.

Sybil didn't cast her another glance. She sprang to her feet — as much as it was possible to _spring,_ in an evening gown and carriage coat — and darted to the door of the drawing room, calling, "thank you," over her shoulder as she took Imogen by the elbow and dragged her out into the hall.

If she wanted them to think she was grown up, she would have to stop doing things like that where others could see her… Edith was sure _she_ had never behaved with her own friends in such a way. And of all the things to shout at a servant, _thank you_ was among the strangest.

"Sir and Mrs Agamemnon Bunting."

Mama chatted with Mrs Bunting for a torturous length of time, even as Sybil and Imogen could be heard giggling and making fools of themselves out in the hall, and then…

Well, and then they were gone, and Edith was to be subjected to yet another dismal dinner with only her mother and father for company.

She harrumphed.

"Thomas," Mama said, giving her a _very_ sharp glance, "if you would be so good as to let Carson know we're ready to dine..."

*

"He's nice enough," said Lily, as if she didn't much care. Daisy prodded at the coals with a poker and pretended she wasn't listening, that _she_ didn't much care either, but it was getting harder and harder as the talk went on. "But he's no Thomas, is he?"

"Well, him being _nice_ , that's a good reason to like him, isn't it? Thomas is _horrible._ "

"How so?" Gwen asked, dropping a sofa cushion much too close to the pail for Daisy's comfort—she'd be the one who got blamed if it were all sooty, no matter whose fault.

"Yeah, how so?" she chimed in, turning round from the fireplace—since she'd been here people always liked to say that but they never gave any reasons, not real ones at least, and Odetta looked at all of them with narrowed eyes. It wasn't hard to see why she hated Gwen, putting somebody new in as the second housemaid when she'd been there for longer, but of everybody Daisy knew in the house _she_ was the most horrible. Not Thomas.

"If you don't already _know,_ " she said, sniffing, "I shouldn't be the one totell you."

Then she looked right at Daisy and turned on the lamp she'd been dusting, a bright ugly glare—even knowing it was coming it was just terrible. She tried not to cringe but didn't manage it.

It just wasn't right, having light there and then gone again like that without anything more than a flick of somebody's fingers… having it in the daytime, too. Nobody needed that, did they? What was the point of it all? Besides, candles didn't have any glass bits and everybody knew how to handle a lamp proper, but those lightbulbs could just explode at any moment like if there were a bomb going off in the house and

"Haven't we got a right to know same as anybody?" said Gwen, cross. "I haven't been here long enough to learn it all if no one tells me."

"Learn what?" said Anna, stepping into the morning room with her hands on her hips. 

"Er…"

"Is it much more important than getting this room finished before Mrs Hughes comes in?"

Even when she smiled she could be scary. Daisy quickly got back to work, as if she'd never been a part of the talk at all...

But it'd be on her mind, the rest of the day.

Thomas always was.

*

"Can one _really_ love someone without one knowing it?" asked Sybil. The idea was almost insulting — it was all very well and good for heroines out of novels to realise the true feelings they'd had all along during some grand occasion with the man in question, but in real life she hoped women knew their own hearts.

On the other hand, things _would_ make more sense if it were true… 

"One hopes so, for Mary's sake," said Aunt Rosamund.

 _That_ thing, in particular.

"When _are_ they going to be married?"

She didn't need to say who, if Aunt Rosamund was going to be so frank as that.

Her aunt laughed. "Aren't you likely to know before I do, my dear?"

"No one ever tells me _anything,_ " Sybil answered. "I overheard," and when she looked over Aunt Rosamund was raising her eyebrows, but really she was the _last_ person who could bother her about eavesdropping, Aunt Rosamund always seemed to know everything without being told, "that they wanted it to be in autumn, and it really _would_ be romantic, but Mary says that Cousin Patrick – "

Dragon chose that moment to skid to a halt in the middle of the path and start chewing on some shrubbery, and she jolted in the saddle. A lift of the reins did nothing to change his mind, and nor did a thwap to his shoulder.

Sometimes she wished someone had stopped her from choosing such a ridiculously stubborn horse. (Whenever she complained, Edith always had something to say about their _similar personalities._ She could really be so horrid at times, though it was most often in front of Mary, and not in private… she understood why, really, but that hardly meant she liked being bullied.)

Ahead of her Aunt Rosamund came to a graceful stop. "What does Mary say about Cousin Patrick?" she said, steering toward her with a raised eyebrow.

"I forget," Sybil faltered.

Maybe it was a good thing that Dragon was hungry.

She couldn't possibly share what she'd learned last night, not without making Mary more cross than ever, and if Aunt Rosamund really wanted to know she'd find out some other way. Perhaps from Edith, who had been listening at the door again. (Anna had told her about _that_ this morning.)

"Hm," said Aunt Rosamund.

"We talk about so much you know, we _are_ sisters…"

"Of course you do."

"I was only curious," said Sybil. Her attempt at finality was a success.

"About love?"

"Oh, I don't – "

"Well, I daresay you've come to the right woman. Your mother is hardly…"

Dragon took off at a gallop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> girl power! this one is short because april is a hot mess (for obvious reasons) and getting to be pretty long!


End file.
